


heartaches have given me sight

by WynCatastrophe



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: Rise of Empire Era - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe, Character Study, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-09
Updated: 2014-02-09
Packaged: 2018-01-11 18:21:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1176348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WynCatastrophe/pseuds/WynCatastrophe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU. After Palpatine's deposal, the Republic tries to recover, and Vice-Chancellor Amidala reflects on the burden of service.</p>
            </blockquote>





	heartaches have given me sight

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pronker](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pronker/gifts).



> Disclaimer: Star Wars and all associated themes, concepts and characters are now (so I hear) the property of Disney. Title is from "They Bring Me to You," by Joshua Radin. 
> 
> For pronker. 
> 
> First in a set of (hopefully) related ficlets. Feedback welcome! :)

These days, the Senate is mostly a headache.  Not that it ever wasn’t, but for a while there it was more, too: the thrill of high stakes, playing a deadly game with the fate of star systems hanging in the balance, fighting for the votes that will make the difference.  In the first months after Palpatine’s deposal, when the Jedi had assumed –– illegally, some would argue –– control of the Senate, every decision had felt critical, each move charged with adrenaline.  Now things are ... still important, but more mundane.  All the petty squabbling of bureaucracy, getting in the way. 

 

It comes to Padmé, slowly, that she has never really known the Senate under “normal” conditions.  She’d served, after her last term as Queen was up, at the request of her successor –– but by that time, of course, Palpatine –– _Sidious_ –– was already the Supreme Chancellor and pulling everybody’s strings.  As a matter of fact –– given that Palpatine was already the Senator from Naboo before Padmé was elected Queen –– her entire political career has been lived, consciously or unconsciously, under the shadow of his influence. 

 

Maybe her work in politics always felt like a desperate fight against evil because it _was_. 

 

There is still evil in the galaxy, of course.  Though the Jedi assure her that the shadow occluding their knowledge of the Force has been lifted, people still make bad choices and wrong choices and outright destructive choices.  as long as there are sentient beings possesssing the capacity for free will, there is a better than even chance that some of them will do bad things at least some of the time.  And Padmé knows, of course, that it is her duty, as it is the duty of every responsible citizen, to fight the ordinary everyday evils of hunger and exploitation and selfish greed, just as much now as it ever was. 

 

But somehow, she doesn’t quite have the same fire any more.  She finds herself growing impatient with the constant bickering over minutiae, when so many have lost so much.  Maybe once she would have channeled that impatience into a renewed drive for reform, but now mostly she thinks, _This is what I’m missing Luke and Leia for?_  

 

There has to be a better way for a mother to spend her time. 

 

Maybe this is why the Queens of Naboo have always been elected so young, why they only ever serve two terms: because public service is supposed to _start_ your life, it isn’t supposed to be your _whole_ life.  There’s supposed to be more –– time for yourself and the people who matter to you.  Time to find more people who matter.  Time to change the galaxy in the little ways, instead of the dramatic ones.  Time to find a home, or make one.  

 

(There’s supposed to be more than this.) 

 

Bail has been urging her to run for election, next time around –– the first free election to be conducted since ... Valorum, maybe?  If you could even call that election truly free.  Padmé understands why Bail wants her to run, why he wants to step down and why he wants to know that someone he can trust –– someone the people of the Republic can trust –– will be taking his place.  It makes sense.  Padmé is a reasonable choice. 

 

For the first time in her life, she finds herself thinking: _Maybe someone else could do it_. 

 

The desk-com beeps, signaling the incoming message she’s been waiting on, an hour and a half late.  Not so late, in the grand scheme of things –– but what it amounts to, by the time she incorporates the numbers into her report, is an hour and a half too much, another night she doesn’t see her children; Leia and Luke will both be in bed by the time she gets home. 

 

_Yes_ , she thinks, as she keys up the committee files.  _Time to let someone else try._  

 


End file.
